Month: March 2009

A great example of this is “The Batting Stance Guy.” I found about this from Dan Francisco and it’s amazing. It’s almost stupid in it’s simplicity, and brilliant in its execution.

Batting Stance Guy, or BSG as he refers to himself, makes videos highlighting in a funny way the batting stances of players from every major league team. I’ve written about what makes videos “go viral” a few times before. This series hits almost all of the criteria. Outstanding example of figuring out a specific audience and creating content just for them.

Because I’m a Giants fan, below is the video of batting stances of the Giants. Watch until the end for a great one of Rich Aurilia.

Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel is one of my favorite shows. It’s a simple concept. The host, Mike Rowe, visits someone who has what he calls a “dirty job,” but one that needs to be done. This might be making charcoal, digging a wine cave or catching crab in the Bering Sea. He celebrates the people who do these jobs that need to be done.

He spoke at the TED Conference in 2008 about the nature of work and said “We’ve declared war on work as a society.” He goes on to call for a “PR campaign for work. Manual labor. Skilled labor. Somebody needs to be out there talking about the forgotten benefits.”

It’s a great talk and worth watching on a Friday.

He’s also put his money where his mouth is with MikeRoweWorks.com (pay no attention to all the FLASH at the beginning)to try and keep this moving. I’m trying to help the way I know how, by spreading the word. And yes, Mike’s on Twitter.

We work with a lot of early stage companies, heck we’re one ourselves, and I’m always encouraging them to be on the lookout for the part of their business that they are overlooking that may be their big break.

There are lots of examples of companies that have succeeded at something they developed while working on what they thought was their main goal. What I’m trying to say is, keep your eyes open for opportunity.

In January, I wrote about how Morgan/Dorado had started working with a new client as a result of answering a question on LinkedIn. That post seemed to resonate with quite a few people and it was linked to from Slate and ended up with quite a good number of readers (at least for something that I wrote here).

Well, it kept going and I receeived a note asking me if I would be interested in expanding the post a bit for another site. I did, and now it’s there as well. That piece is a bit longer and with more context. go check it out and let me know what you think. Also, thanks to Marc Tracy at Slate and David Lamb at FranTrends for sharing my story with others.

Here’s the scoop. You don’t want to, or can’t, work from home, or you work better withothers around. Share an office, or rent a slot in someone else’s office. Benefits for everyone involved.

On a related note, if anyone in El Dorado Hills is looking for an office to work from, we have an empty one that is available. Yes, we’re picky, but it’s a great office. Drop me a note if you might be interested in using it for a few months.

They have nothing to lose. They get better ratings. You can lose credibility. You can lose focus on important issues, and you legitimize fringe concerns.

Two things at play here. The LDS Church in the past few years has lost one its main outside PR counselors, and in regards to the White House, they are still feeling their legs.

My advice, let proxies fight those battles for you. Give people who believe in your cause the tools to fight the battle, but don’t do it yourself. Make your position clear, then move on to more important things.